Archive for the ‘Snapshot Biography’ Category

It must be fun to have a birthday so close to Halloween. Not only do you get to go out a few days before to random neighbor’s houses to get an insane amount of free candy, but then you get the added bonus of being able to throw Halloween themed birthday parties and get even more free candy and presents. It’s almost as good as the near Easter birthday and it totally blows out of the water, the near Christmas birthday. The latter, well, you just get gypped. As you probably have guessed, I did a lot of present maneuvering when I was a child. One year, I went as far as opening all my Christmas presents one night and re-wrapping them before my parents woke up in the morning. I ruined surprises like a champ when I was a kid.

Gianna had some friends and family come out for her 8th birthday party. Cute costumes, cuter kids, fun, games, cake and candy. All the makings of a perfect birthday celebration.

Even better, there was a face-off of the Jasons. I think they decided to rule the horror scene together.

A great session that produce Number 10 on the Top Ten Photos list!

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I had the pleasure of shooting an intimate Halloween Party down in “The Milf” (New Milford, CT) this year. I was picked from a pool of photographers who went after the job and I couldn’t have been happier about being able to shoot an event. Wendy, the hostess, and I went over the details for the night and settled on some ideas for the upcoming shoot.

The night of the party came around and the weather outside couldn’t have been more fitting for a spooky Halloween party. Dark, very stormy, and the nippy October air set the stage perfectly for a night of ghouls and ghosts.

The only drawback for the night was the weather forced many of the planned outdoor shots to be rendered null and void. I learned a very important lesson that night. In all aspects of photography, you’d better have a back up plan!

Luckily, Wendy had a whole spread set up in the house and we made due with keeping everything inside. It’s hard to not love a good Halloween party…

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I don’t get to go out to as many concerts as I would like to these days. Between the price of tickets and the cost of drinks and what not, going to a concert ends up being a financial improbability most of the time. Luckily for me I have some talented friends who are musicians and while they may not be selling out stadiums, they hardly leave me regretting coming out for one of their shows.

I’ve know John, the scruffy looking bassist in photo #3, for quite some time. We worked together for a few years before I headed up to the great white north and he took over my job. He was a groomsmen at my wedding…wayyyyy back in the day. I used to borrow his beat up “vintage” Chrysler LeBaron convertible for a joy ride now and again. (That thing was such a shit box… hahaha) We would go down to Quinnipiac Park in Cheshire on Sunday mornings for pick up roller hockey games. An all around good friend and good guy. On top of that, he plays a mean guitar.

I caught one of his shows with a revolving band lineup that he plays with every once in a while. He was rocking Johhny B’s, 1457 Meriden Road, Wolcott, CT, on this particular night. Sadly, he didn’t bite the head off a bat, or stage dive into the bar, but it was a good show none the less.

A few shots from the show.

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I used to have a substitute teacher in elementary school, who to give the students a little slice of history, would whip out his cane which had some original Dr. Seuss characters carved into it. Most of the kids thought it was just a mass produced item, but it turns out the guy really was good friends of the Doctor and the cane has since been donated to a collection of Seussical memorabilia.

Having a long time love affair of many of the Seuss works, Green Eggs and Ham being one of my favorites, I decided to take in a local performance of the musical, Seussical, at St Mary’s School in Waterbury, CT. The musical mixes a few different Seuss stories into a decent representation of the doctor’s zany world. I definitely would recommend taking the time to see a showing if you happen across a free evening.

One of the more difficult aspects of shooting plays, concerts, fashion shows, sports is the fact that you aren’t in full control of the elements that help a photographer take a good, usable picture. Most of the time you aren’t allowed to move around to different spots or angles, the lighting is usually very harsh, ever changing and positioned in ways that make it very difficult to adjust in a timely manner, and the subjects are engaged in their own activities and finding just the right moments to hit the shutter is certainly a challenge. For many “event” shooters, it takes a very good eye and very good reflexes to keep up with the action and come away with images that help tell the story within the story.

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